This invention is related to fiber optic communications and more particularly to an optical fiber interconnection device used for rearranging arrays of optical fibers between an input side and an output side.
The use of fiber optics for high speed communications is finding increased use within large microprocessors and multiple microprocessor systems. In back planes, more optical interconnections are required as more daughter cards are added for increasing the number of channels. Cross connects may also be utilized within back planes for communicating between groups of daughter cards or microprocessors. These applications typically require that each daughter card or microprocessor be in communication with each of the other daughter cards or microprocessors in the system. These communications are achieved by connecting optical fibers in a point to point fashion between each daughter card or microprocessor and the other daughter cards or microprocessors in the system. It can therefore be appreciated that as the number of channels required is increased, the number of daughter cards or microprocessors that must communicate with each other is also increased. This creates a problem in that point to point wiring for large numbers of channels is labor intensive, costly, time consuming, and susceptible to connection errors. Additionally, because optical fibers are subject to environmental limitations such as bend radius, fiber management systems are often employed for such large systems of interconnections. Fiber management becomes a challenging problem as a number of channels and the number of point to point connections are increased resulting in higher fiber counts in the backplane.
In order to address this problem, an optical interconnection device has been developed having arrays of fibers arranged in a given orientation at an input side which are rearranged within the device and exit at an output side with fibers of the arrays being arranged in different relative positions from the input side. While this device has been successful, it is still susceptible to damage during handling. An optical interconnection device of this type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,464,404, which is incorporated herein by reference as if fully set forth.
It would be desirable to provide a shuffle device for optical fibers which provides additional protection for the optical fibers and fiber bundles in order to prevent damage to the individual fibers or fiber ribbons, as well as the shuffle region. It would also be desirable to provide an arrangement with increased tensile strength for the fiber ribbons or arrays.